


Service Dogs for Superheroes (SDfSH): Sam and Ava

by literally_no_idea



Series: Service Dogs for Superheroes (SDfSH) Main Series [15]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, SDfSH 'verse, Service Animals, Service Dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-18 19:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18125789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literally_no_idea/pseuds/literally_no_idea
Summary: Natasha flies home from Oregon with the new 4 month old puppy, and arrives on the communal floor to a “welcome to the family” party that Tony’s organized, because at this point he’s way too excited by every new puppy that comes home. They’re sitting around the living room eating cake with the dogs eating dog safe cake, and everyone’s trading ideas for the puppy’s name.





	Service Dogs for Superheroes (SDfSH): Sam and Ava

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back to the series, or if you're new here, welcome! The first part of today's story involves some alcohol drinking, not in a bad way but still, if you'd like to avoid it, you can just skip to the first line break. Other than that, enjoy!

Natasha flies home from Oregon with the new 4 month old puppy, and arrives on the communal floor to a “welcome to the family” party that Tony’s organized, because at this point he’s way too excited by every new puppy that comes home. They’re sitting around the living room eating cake with the dogs eating dog safe cake, and everyone’s trading ideas for the puppy’s name.

 

“Bark-con, like Falcon,” Tony suggests with a snicker, and Bruce almost falls out of his chair laughing. Okay, so they’re also maybe a little tipsy.

 

“Wingman? Wingwoman! Wingdog?” Clint makes himself laugh so hard that he spits champagne all over himself.

 

...Fine, they’re  _ really _ drunk. So what.

 

“Ava,” Steve says quietly, from where he and Bucky are sitting on the couch side by side, watching their drunk teammates in confusion. “It’s bird related, but subtle. Pretty, too. I think it fits her.” The puppy in question wanders over to Steve, licking his knee.

 

Natasha thinks about it for a minute, trying to clear her head of the light buzz she has going (she has an enhanced metabolism similar to Jessica’s), and finally she nods. “Yeah, I like it. Ava. She’ll be Ava.”

 

* * *

 

Training starts a week later, once Ava’s had time to adjust to her new home and new routine. She won’t have nearly as many tasks as some of her fellow service dogs; however, it’s important that Ava can perform the tasks she does have exceptionally well. So Natasha starts training, and more than anything, she wants Ava to be prepared for all kinds of weird situations; she knows that Sam runs a support group for veterans, and it’ll be important for Ava to be able to focus on Sam and only Sam, even when other people in the room are struggling.

 

Natasha follows the same basic pattern she's used for the other dogs’ training, teaching a command or task until Ava has it basically perfect, then changing the circumstances to make the command or task harder to complete. She teaches Ava basic obedience on her own floor, where there’s no other distractions, then moves to training on the other Avengers’ personal floors. She trains on Clint’s floor, first with the door closed between them, then with the door open so Ava can see Clint and Lucky.

 

She eventually moves Ava down to the communal floor, doing training in the dining room while everyone’s in the living room, or vice versa, until she finally has Ava doing all of her commands and tasks even with everyone else, including the other dogs, in the room around her. That’s when she starts to increase the difficulty even more.

 

“Hey Tony, do you mind helping with training for a moment?” Natasha asks one morning after breakfast, and Tony frowns but wanders over.

 

“Sure, what do you need?”

 

“I need you to fake a panic attack, so Ava can get used to only paying attention to her handler, not anyone else who might be upset,” Natasha explains. “Plus, it’s good practice for Diva.”

 

Tony nods. “Yeah, okay. How do you want me to do this?”

 

“However you want. We’re ready if you are.”

 

Tony takes a deep breath, then nods. As if a he flipped a switch, Tony starts to hyperventilate, stumbling his way into the kitchen and curling up in a ball in the corner, shaking and clutching at his chest. Diva follows him in, whining and pawing at Tony’s arms, and Ava tries to follow the other dog.

 

“Ava, heel,” Natasha commands, and Ava stops, hesitating between Natasha and Tony, before walking back over to Natasha and sitting in a heel by her side. “Good girl,” Natasha praises, giving Ava a couple treats. She waits for another moment or two while Tony continues his faked panic attack, his arms wrapped tightly around Diva, and when Ava fidgets slightly but stays by her side, she gives Ava another treat, and tells Tony that they’re good.

 

Tony stops, giving Diva a few full body pets and taking the treat Natasha hands him to give to Diva. “She’s doing well,” Tony says. “I don’t think I remember you teaching any of the other dogs this though.”

 

“No, I didn’t, not to this extent. But Sam works with other veterans, so I imagine emotions will run high sometimes.” She doesn’t elaborate much more than that, because she figures that anything that Sam wants to explain, he can explain on his own terms.

 

Tony nods. “Cool. Well, if you ever need more training help, JARVIS will know where to find me.”

 

“I’ll keep it in mind.” As Tony heads down to the lab, Natasha heads to the gym to talk to her next training assistant.

 

* * *

 

“Hey Steve, can I get your help for a minute?” Steve reaches out to stop the punching bag from swinging and turns around to face them.

 

“What’s happening?”

 

“Nothing, I just need an extra person for this part of Ava’s training. I need you to fake an anger outburst, like you used to do when we were training Verity.”

 

Steve frowns. “Verity will react too, you know that.”

 

“Yeah, that’s not what matters, necessarily. I just need Ava not to react. She’s probably going to go to Sam’s support groups with him, so she’ll need to be able to ignore other people’s reactions.”

 

Steve nods. “I hadn’t thought about that. Okay. Now?”

 

“Now,” Natasha agrees.

 

Unlike Tony’s quick change, Steve builds his way up into yelling. “I kept repeating it in my head, over and over,” he starts quietly, “watching the same moment happen. I would watch Bucky pick up the shield, and the blast knocked him out of the train, and I saw him hanging on to the side, and I just, I almost reached him, I almost did, and then he fell, and I failed. I was a terrible friend.”

 

Steve takes a deep breath. “I watched my best friend fall because he picked up my shield, and at the time I thought he was dead, but he wasn’t, and I didn’t look for him, and I failed, I failed because he said he was with me to the end of the line and I just gave up on him. And now they expect me to lead a team of amazing people and I can’t, I shouldn’t, why don’t they get that! Bucky and I should have DIED. We should be gone, we should have been allowed to just go, and we didn’t get that! We didn’t get that, we didn’t get to let go of all of this pain, and we’re supposed to be GRATEFUL?”

 

By the end, Steve is practically screaming, pacing back and forth, and Verity is jumping on him desperately, but she’s barely causing him to stumble. Ava starts to step forward, and Natasha puts a hand out. “Ava, stay.” Ava stops, but she keeps standing, staring at Steve as he paces, still rambling at the top of his lungs about one thing after another. Natasha praises Ava, gives her treats, and then looks back up at Steve. “Okay, we’re good.”

 

Steve slows down, and the words seem to throw him off, which is just enough of a change that this time, when Verity jumps on him, he drops to the ground and immediately gets a lap full of dog. “Okay, okay, I’m here, girl, I’m here. Thanks, kid.” Natasha hands Steve a few treats, and he gives them to Verity, who takes them and then immediately licks Steve’s nose. Steve laughs. “So, did you get some of the training you needed?” he asks, and Natasha nods.

 

“Yeah, that was really helpful. Thanks, Steve.” She pauses before she says the next part. “And Steve. If you’re still struggling that much, there’s no harm in going to a therapist. I used to see one.” Another pause while she decides whether she’s really willing to share the rest. “Actually, I still do from time to time. It’s not perfect. But it helps. Tony knows some good people.”

 

She leaves with Ava, and Steve watches them go from the floor, Verity still laying in his lap.

 

* * *

 

Once Natasha’s confident in Ava’s training, she texts Sam, and then goes over to his house to talk to him. Ava is in her gear, courtesy of Tony; a straight-front black fabric harness with sewn-on dark grey fabric wings on either side, and a dark grey cape with dark red trim. It matches the Falcon gear Sam wears, and Natasha thinks it’s cute, in a dorky kind of way. (Tony made another harness without the wings, but he specifically asked Natasha to show Sam the one with the wings first.)

 

Sam opens the door when Natasha and Ava arrive, takes one look at them both, and sighs, stepping back so they can come in. “Of course Tony would put wings on her harness,” he says, but there’s no heat in the words. “So, what’s her name?”

 

“Ava. Steve named her,” Natasha says, and Sam laughs.

 

“Yeah, that sounds about right. So, I guess you remembered my comment about struggling from dinner that one night?”

 

“I did. You were already on my list, though. You’ve been there for Steve and I, and the rest of the team, through a lot. I figured you deserved some support too.”

 

“Damn right I do,” Sam says, and it’s clearly a joke, but Sam is also starting to tear up a little.

 

Natasha pulls him into a hug, and if she can feel his tears soaking through the shoulder of her shirt, she doesn’t mention it. “Always.” She waits until Sam pulls back, giving him a moment to collect himself if he wants or needs to. “So, should I show you what Ava knows?”

 

* * *

 

Sam meets with his support group a few days later, and maybe it’s silly, but he really does feel better with Ava by his side. The group is kind about the change, and a few people ask him if they think he could get them service dogs, too. He promises them he’ll look into it for them, and overall, he thinks this is going to be a good thing for him.

 

* * *

 

He runs into a few people in public who are less polite; people who doubt that he’s actually a veteran because of his age, people who think that he’s faking everything, people who don’t think PTSD service dogs matter. He shuts each of them down easily, but the worst encounter he has is a woman in a grocery store who tells him that she’s so glad a service dog helps him, “but those kids who claim to have PTSD are so rude, so disrespectful to veterans.”

 

“PTSD isn’t exclusive to veterans,” he tells her, but she shakes her head.

 

“Maybe if you’ve been in a shooting or something, but what else could possibly be so bad? All these kids claiming they’ve been ‘abused’ is so ridiculous. Just looking for attention, in my opinion.”

 

It takes all the self control Sam has (as well as a few different alerts from Ava) to not yell at the woman. “I can’t change your mind, but I can assure you that I personally know some people who have been abused as children, and I don’t doubt for a second that what they went through was painful and traumatic enough to cause PTSD,” he says, and the woman splutters, searching for an excuse.

 

“Well, but that’s not the kind of person I was talking about,” she says.

 

“Right. Lady, if you want to respect veterans, maybe you should also respect the people we’re putting our lives on the line for. My wingman died to protect the young, the innocent, the good at heart. He certainly didn't die for people to spread this kind of intolerance. If you’ll excuse me.”

 

Sam barely makes it through the checkout and back to his car before he breaks down, sobbing in the back seat with Ava in his lap, a heavy weight helping to ground him in the present. He slowly comes back down from the flashbacks, and he realizes he’s ended up with Ava in his lap, his entire body curled around her like he’s trying to shield her. He cries for a few more minutes, running his hands through Ava’s fur, and she licks the tears off of his face, making him laugh. “Yeah, let’s go home. I promised you homemade dog treats, and you’ve definitely just earned them.”

 

He has nightmares about Riley, about what happened, but as bad as they are, every time he wakes up, Ava’s there, ready to help him, and if he’s being honest, this isn’t the worst life he could be living.

**Author's Note:**

> Your service dog facts of the day:
> 
> -Service dogs are for their handler, not anyone else. This is where that big distinction between service dogs, emotional support dogs, and therapy dogs comes in. A therapy dog is not task trained, but can go in public places (with the business's permission) to help cheer people up. An emotional support animal is for a psychiatrically disabled person, but they just provide comfort naturally through their presence and are not task trained. They cannot go in public, except for airplanes (which is not covered by the ADA, or Americans with Disabilities Act, but by the ACAA, or Air Carrier Access Act), and they can live in no pets housing (which is also not the ADA, but is instead the FHA, or Fair Housing Act).
> 
> -Service dogs generally should not react to other people being upset, because again, they're helping their handler, not everyone else; however, no service dog is perfect, and some service dogs will sometimes try to task to help someone else besides their own handler that's experiencing similar symptoms.
> 
> Also, about the last part of this story: Yes, this actually does happen. There are people that think that combat PTSD is the only ""real"" kind of PTSD. I personally am someone with non-combat PTSD.
> 
> On a similar note, an interesting fact about the service dog community is that not all service dog handlers are accepting of other types of service dog handler. For example, I've heard of guide dog handlers that think that guide dogs are the only "real" service dog, and everyone else is just faking, or I've seen handlers with mobility service dogs that think that psychiatric service dogs aren't "real" service dogs. Unfortunately, there's a lot of gatekeeping in service dog communities, and I don't think that's going to go away anytime soon, especially with everyone so on edge about fake service dogs recently.
> 
> And for that matter, about fake service dogs: there's a lot of debate as to the best way to fix this issue; people often suggest a required national registration (which currently doesn't exist in the US, so if you've seen ""registries,"" they're scams), or only allowing organization service dogs and not owner trained dogs, etc.
> 
> Personally? I think that it feels dehumanizing to have to ""register"" as disabled with the government, plus that puts more strain on disabled people than we already experience because we would then have to renew registration, prove registration at every business we enter, remember to carry proof of registration, etc, and that's a lot.
> 
> If we exclude owner trained dogs, we exclude lots of handlers with multiple disabilities. Most organizations only want to train like five (5) tasks total, and some handlers need their service dog to know closer to ten (10), twenty (20), or even thirty (30) tasks, so by excluding owner trained dogs, a lot of people could end up homebound as a result.
> 
> And as for the fake service dogs themselves as it currently stands? I think businesses need to be informed of their rights to remove a dog that is out of control, and that would help dramatically. I also think that sometimes we're quick to judge a dog as ""fake"" when it could just be a legitimate service dog that's having an off day, and again, in that case, just politely ask them to leave until the dog is back under control.
> 
> Anyway, enough of my ranting, my notes are getting to be longer than the actual story.
> 
> If you'd like to see more of my drabbles or notes related to this series or want to talk to me about this series (or anything else, for that matter!) you can find me on tumblr [ here ](https://servicedogsforsuperheroes.tumblr.com)
> 
> As always, thank you for reading!!


End file.
